Aftershocks
by MegZ137
Summary: A split second decision has lasting repercussions for the Doctor and Rose.
1. Chapter 1

**Aftershocks**

The Doctor held her wrist tightly. "No, Rose," he said, "you can't make it in time. I won't let you."

Rose shifted frantically, unwilling to let this go. Yes, the world was in danger of erupting around them, but how was she supposed to watch a child die and do nothing?

A crash behind them startled them both, and the Doctor whirled around, letting go of her in the process. Rose, seeing him distracted, made a split second decision.

"I'm sorry," she called, as she dove through the door. She had to try.

 _She almost made it._

* * *

The first thing Rose noticed when she woke up on a hard bed in a white, cold room was a head full of spiky hair laying near her elbow on the bed. A moment's investigation revealed it to be the Doctor, leaning over from a chair he'd pulled up beside her. He was pale and looked utterly exhausted, and even in her confused state she decided not to wake him. He looked like he could use the rest.

The second thing she noticed was pain.

Oh lord, the pain.

Up and down her left side, burning and stabbing, from her shoulder to her fingertips, tingling anew with every breath, and topped off with a crashing headache. She moaned in spite of herself, and the head next to her popped right up.

"Rose! You're awake. That's brilliant," he said, smiling, "just bloody brilliant."

Rose tried to smile back but her lips felt strange and her tongue was glued to her mouth. "Where m'I?" she finally muttered.

"Hospital. Sisters of Plenitude. Needed a little more help than usual to get you fixed up this time." He paused and peered at her more closely. "Speaking of which, how are you feeling?"

"Hurts," she muttered. "Everything hurts."

He reached over and fiddled with the settings on a tube that she had not previously noticed running into her arm, and suddenly the throbbing tuned down a notch, settling into a dull roar.

"Better?"

Rose nodded. "What happened?"

A cloud passed over the Doctor's face. "Explosion," he said tersely. "You were injured rather badly. Do you not remember anything?"

Rose wracked her brain for a moment but she couldn't really dredge up anything in response. She shook her head mutely.

He closed his eyes for a minute and took a deep breath. "We'll discuss it when you're better. For now, you need to sleep." He laid a cool hand on her forehead, brushing her hair off from her face. "I'm very glad you're back. Really, really pleased. Couldn't be happier to see you on the mend. We'll talk about it later."

 _There's something he doesn't want me to know,_ Rose thought groggily, but the thought drifted away before she could pin it down. "Wait," she said, "how long have we been here?"

"Three weeks." This was the last thing she heard before she drifted off to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

The next time she awoke, Rose heard the familiar hum of the ship, and felt the cold, hard surface of the exam table, and knew without looking that she was back in the TARDIS medical bay.

She cracked an eyelid experimentally and was pleased to find the lights dimmed and no unreasonable amounts of pain afflicting her. She appeared to be alone in the room, although she could tell from various jars and bottles strewn about on the counter that the Doctor must have been here very recently. She tested out rising to seated on the edge of the exam bed, and then tried stretching out one limb at a time. All seemed to be well except for an odd feeling in her left arm, a sort of numb prickliness.

"Oh good, you're up!" the Doctor said, coming back in. "I checked you out of the hospital last night. You were far enough along that I could care for you here, and I thought it'd be best for you to be back on the ship. The TARDIS can help with whatever your body is still recovering from, and we've got all of the latest medical equipment here." He paused and frowned, bouncing on the balls of his feet with his hands crammed into his pockets. "We-e-e-ell, not everything. I certainly don't have the latest in cryogenic refacilitation here, and some of the temporal-genetic manipulators from Artherox Five would be a nice addition, but…"

"Whoa, stop," Rose broke in, holding her hand up. She suddenly was aware that her words were a bit slurred. "Too much too fast."

He smiled somewhat unconvincingly, and whipped out the sonic to take some readings. As he studied the readouts, Rose reached out and touched his shoulder. The Doctor flinched away as if he'd been hit by a live current.

"Um, jumpy much?" Rose asked.

The Doctor busied himself at the counter with his back to her. "Well, you startled me. It happens from time to time." He launched into a long explanation about action potentials and startle reflexes and superior Time Lord physiology that Rose was just too fuzzy to follow, so instead she tuned him out and just watched him. His words were easy as ever but his posture was wrong, somehow. His movements were jerky and his back was ramrod straight. His shoulders were curled forward and he picked up and put things down just a little too forcefully.

It was, she thought, almost as if he were deeply, deeply angry, and trying terribly hard to hide it.

"Doctor," she said slowly, not caring that she was interrupting him, "why don't you match?"

Well that brought the story to an abrupt halt. He turned cautiously to face her. "Care to explain that question?" he asked, confusion and wariness warring on his face.

Rose tried to think more clearly. "You. You're off somehow. Your words are all light and bouncy and your body language is all tense and mad. What's going on?"

He gestured dismissively and spun back towards the counter. "Nothing. You're imagining things."

"No, I'm pretty sure I'm not," Rose insisted. "Please, Doctor. What's wrong?"

He braced his hands on the counter. "What's wrong?" he said in a forced, light tone. "What could be wrong? My best friend just literally got herself blown to bits — on purpose mind you, and right in front of me — oh, and let's see, nearly died. And then you spent three weeks in a coma while they reattached and or regrew various body parts, none of which we were sure would work." His tone was rising in spite of rather obvious attempts to control himself.

Giving up all pretense, he put down the items he was holding and turned to face her again. "All of which would never have happened if you had just been reasonable and listened to me for one second."

Rose closed her eyes, suddenly dizzy. "Doctor, I don't know what you're talking about."

"You ran into the hallway on the raider's ship to save a child from an explosion. There was no chance you were going to make it out in time." He sat down heavily on the end of the exam table, just out of reach, and the expression on his face was terrible, bereaved and bitter. "I _told_ you it was impossible. Next thing I knew you were gone. Apparently you decided you were fast enough to make a run for it if you didn't have me to slow you down." He paused for a moment and balled his hands into fists. "You lost your left arm in the blast. Several internal organs ruptured. Copious head injuries. If I hadn't been right there to throw a stasis field over you before you could bleed out…"

Rose swallowed, feeling sick at the images he was painting in her mind. "But… why do I…" She looked up to meet his cold, dark eyes.

"The sisters have technology far beyond your time. They were able to reattach your arm and regrow the organs that were damaged, heal your head trauma. You're essentially back to normal, although it will take some time for the arm to reintegrate. You'll have headaches for a while."

Rose looked down at her two hands, flexed them both experimentally. "It feels kind of odd, all tingly."

"You were lucky," he said quietly. "You could've died. Nearly did." He dropped his head into his hands, his tension and exhaustion evident. "Almost lost you."

Rose felt as if her throat was closing in on itself. It was the most upset she had ever seen him.

"'m sorry," she whispered.

"Are you?" he asked through his fingers, his tone oddly conversational. "That's nice, I suppose. Doesn't really help, but it's good that you feel that way, from a purely academic point of view."

"What do you mean?" Rose was having a distinctly hard time keeping up with all the emotional shifts in this conversation.

"Rose," he said tightly, "I've honestly never been angrier at you. I told you not to go in there, and as soon as I looked away you dashed in anyway. Tossing your life away deliberately. And over nothing!"

"Not nothing," she said quietly. "A child. It wasn't nothing."

"A child you couldn't save. Don't you think I wanted to save her too? Do you think it was easy for me to stand there and do nothing?"

Rose dropped her gaze. "I don't remember," she said lamely.

"No, I'm sure you don't. The brain protects you from that kind of trauma. Too bad it's not true for bystanders." He paused meaningfully to let that point sink in.

"The little girl," Rose said falteringly, feeling the tears pooling in her eyes in spite of her best attempts to fight them off. "Did she — "

"She died," he said, quick and harsh. "You can't save everyone, Rose." He stopped, breathing hard, clearly trying to reign in his frustrations.

Rose focused on breathing in and breathing out, finding it harder and harder to maintain her equilibrium. The Doctor was furious. She had survived while the child she was trying to save died. Her arm was not really her arm. Her head hurt, and a low, deep ache was spreading through her entire body, physically and emotionally. For once in her life, Rose had no idea what to say or do next. A tear leaked down her cheek and they both pointedly ignored it.

The Doctor pushed up from the bed and stood looking down at her. "You're not really up to this conversation yet, Rose. Go back to your room. You're half concussed, still, and you need to sleep. We can talk about this later."

He reached out as if he were about to offer her his hand to help her down off the bed, then abruptly stopped, pulled himself back, and turned to leave.

"Doctor," Rose said forlornly. She didn't know how to finish the thought.

"Later, Rose," he said quietly. "Just… give me a little time with this." She watched his back as he walked away, not once looking back.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The next morning, Rose emerged from her room and wandered to the kitchen for tea, not at all sure what to expect. She found the Doctor there, looking solemn, handsome even with his hair disheveled and his mouth full of toast. He indicated with a tilt of his head the full kettle on the stove, still hot, and she turned away for a moment to pour herself a cup, trying to gauge his mood from the general temperature of the room.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, voice clipped.

"Not bad," she said. "Arm still feels weird. I slept like the — " she cut herself off at the last minute. _Dead._

He coughed a little as his tea seemed to go down the wrong way. So much for respiratory bypass.

"Right, sorry." She dropped down in the chair across from him, offered a small smile. "I seem to be saying that a lot."

He nodded but had nothing to add.

"If there's something you need to say, go ahead," she offered.

"Okay," the Doctor said slowly, putting down his teacup and meeting her eyes for the first time. "Leaving aside the whole discussion of how monumentally foolish what you did was, which is a fine subject that I look forward to exploring at depth with you at some point in the future, I'm currently trying to wrap my brain around the idea of ever letting you out of this TARDIS again. Because honestly, right at the moment I can't see it. Companions who let themselves get blown to smithereens maybe don't get to go on adventures."

Rose regarded him warily. "So… it's like I'm on house arrest? Gonna put a bracelet on my ankle?"

He raised an eyebrow and looked her straight in the eye, challengingly.

"Oh c'mon, Doctor," she moaned. "You can't be serious."

"As a heart attack," he said, his voice quick and tight. "My ship, my rules, Rose."

Rose contemplated this a moment. She absolutely did not want to have a go at him right now, and there was no point in antagonizing him when he was in this frame of mind. She didn't really think he'd make a habit of going off without her. Maybe once or twice to make a point, but he needed company too badly to stick to it for long. And she was trying hard to make peace with him.

Seeing no other workable options, Rose nodded quietly and simply gave in. "Ok, then," she said. "I'll do whatever you say."

The Doctor blinked, looking surprised, but quickly recovered his composure. "Okay, good," he said. "And if we do go out, you're sticking to my side like, like you're stuck there. Like with glue. Or a leash. Or a leash-like, glue-y thing." He leaned forward and stabbed the table between them with his index finger, punctuating each word. "Right. Beside. Me."

Rose nodded. "I can do that."

The Doctor snorted. "Not so sure about that, myself."

"Well, I can try," Rose offered. "I mean, I can try harder."

"And for Rassilon's sake," he said, clearly gathering a head of steam, "if I tell you no, you're going to listen to me, so help me, or you will be spending a long, long time thinking things over back home with Jackie." He leaned forward onto his elbows. "Don't try me on this, Rose."

Rose paled. "Ok," she said quietly. "I believe you."

He flopped back in his chair. "Ok, then," he grunted. "Ground rules established."

He sipped the rest of his tea in stony silence. She made it through nearly five minutes of this before making excuses and fleeing back to her room.

Longest five minutes ever, she thought. Must've set some kind of record, somewhere in the universe, yeah?

It was going to be a long few days.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Rose jolted out of sleep later, unsure of the time. It took her a moment to realize that it was because the ship had come out of the vortex. This couldn't be good news, she thought, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. What if they were in London, back at the Powell Estate, and the Doctor had decided to just drop her off and be done with it? What if he was finished with her? He wouldn't leave her, would he?

She honestly wasn't sure. He'd been upset with her before, had regularly shouted at her after any number of adventures where she'd run a bit too close to danger or wandered off, but it had not ever been quite like this. In spite of her tendency for finding danger at every turn, she had never really come this close to dying. Just thinking of what that must have been like for him made her sick to her stomach. No wonder he could hardly look at her. It would've been one thing if it were an accident, but this was apparently something she did on purpose. It was especially frustrating because she couldn't remember the events behind their current predicament at all, couldn't recall what she had been thinking or what caused her to make such a desperate choice.

She really couldn't blame him if he were dropping her off. She just hoped he would come back for her.

With a deep sigh, Rose pushed up from the bed, took a quick stop in the bathroom to splash a little water and examine her pale face and red-rimmed eyes in the mirror, before she headed out to the console room to face the music.

The Doctor seemed to be expecting her. He was standing near the video screen, impeccable in his usual suit, hands balled tightly and jammed into his coat pockets. The lights from the console glinted off his glasses in a way that made it very hard to see his expression, but she could read the tight, tense line of his body with no problem. No improvement from earlier, then.

"Did we land somewhere?" she asked hesitantly.

"Yep," he said, "We did. Carefaxian market."

Rose nearly sagged in relief. "We're not in London?"

He blinked. "No. Did you want us to be?"

"No," she said. "I just thought you might have decided to dump me off at home for a few years to see the error of my ways. Or, you know, forever." In spite of herself, her voice broke on the last word.

The Doctor shifted uncomfortably. "Rose," he said, not meeting her eyes. "No. We're here for parts. That's all."

He wasn't leaving her. Rose sat down hard on the jump seat, her legs practically giving out on her in her relief. She wanted to hug him so badly that her arms twitched, but she didn't quite dare.

"I'm going out," he said sternly. "You're taking your hypospray for your head injury and staying here. Got it?"

Rose nodded, unsurprised. Of course, she thought, this was a test. If he was waiting for an argument, though, he wasn't going to get one. She was so overcome with relief at her reprieve that honestly she hardly could work up the energy to be put off by being left behind on a mere shopping trip.

"Okay then," he said. "I'll be back later." He pressed the doors open with the flat of his palm and hurried out without a backward glance.

The doors swung shut behind him with finality.

"Be careful," she called after him, too late.

* * *

He was gone for three hours. Rose counted. Who knew what trouble he could be getting into without her there to help? She waited for a while in the jump seat, then decided it might not be a good idea to be that close at hand when he came back in. He might feel crowded, like her presence was registering some sort of complaint she didn't truly feel at his treatment of her. She tried waiting in her room but couldn't stand not knowing if he was back on the ship or not. Finally she found a spot in the library where she could hear if the front doors opened, and tried with little success to distract herself with a film.

Mostly, though, she watched the clock.

When the doors finally snicked open and she heard his footsteps in the console room, she let out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding.

He was back. Safe and sound.

He came in a little while later and she was surprised when he joined her, sitting on the far end of the couch, carefully not touching her. They watched the rest of the film. They didn't talk. Rose peered at him now and then from the corner of her eye. He looked pale and stressed and tired. He looked grumpy. He looked like he knew she was looking at him, and like he was choosing not to look back.

But he was present. It was a start.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Two weeks.

This new routine had continued for far longer than Rose had suspected. The Doctor went out constantly, nearly every day. He never allowed her to come. Sometimes he announced it, sometimes he didn't. He wasn't rude to her, he didn't yell at her or storm or lecture. Neither was he warm and friendly. He just… orbited carefully around her, and then left. When he came back, he checked on her, adjusted her meds, spent a little time with her now and then, but through it all, he was distant, closed off. Once or twice, he came back dirty and disheveled, having obviously run into trouble. He brushed off any attempts at conversation about what was happening, either out in the universe or between them.

Rose was getting to the point where she would prefer some yelling, to be honest.

She was feeling much better, almost no symptoms left from her injuries. What she was, was bored. Bored, and lonely. She didn't complain, but she was running out of ways to amuse herself. She explored. She read. She worked out in one of any number of gymnasium-like rooms she discovered. She took long baths. She studied a little French, even though there was really no point in learning a language with the TARDIS translating in her head. Mostly, she tried to figure out how to apologize, how to move them past this impasse.

* * *

Then there was the day he came back ripped and bloodied and quite obviously annoyed. Rose just happened to be in the console room at the time, but she quickly moved back out of his way as he stalked over to the console and slammed a few levers home, taking them into the vortex.

"Are you ok?" she asked.

He shot her a thunderous look. "No, I'm not ok. I needed you out there today. Couldn't do it, just me, by myself. Nearly blew the whole peace treaty because I didn't have someone to watch my back."

Rose blinked, surprised at finally getting some genuine input from him on what he was feeling. "Then take me along," she said, speaking slowly and obviously. "If you need my help, let me come. It's been weeks."

"I can't!" he shouted. "That's the whole problem. I can't, can I? Might get yourself killed. Might fall down a hole. Might, oh I dunno, end up getting sacrificed to the blood goddess of Kroom. Don't know, do I?"

It felt like a punch in the gut. Rose just gaped at him, dumbfounded.

"You do all of those things, too," she pointed out, "and with great regularity. How many times have I had to pull you out of a hole?"

"That's different. I'm not as - ," he spat the words out like they were curse words, " - jeopardy friendly as you."

"Doctor," she said, suddenly feeling perilously close to losing her temper herself. "You are literally never going to forgive me, are you?"

"It's not that simple, Rose," he growled. He turned his back on her and busied himself with the console.

"Maybe not," she said, her voice rising, "but how am I supposed to regain your trust if you never let me do anything that requires trust? How does that work?" He turned to her, surprise on his features. "You just seem to be content to endlessly punish me without ever really giving us a chance to work through this," she added, aware that her cheeks were burning. "I don't know exactly what your plan is, but it doesn't seem to be working out all that well. Big Time Lord brain and all, maybe you can think of something else. Like talking to me about all of this. I don't know. Just a human, me."

And with him still gaping at her, she whirled on her heel and stalked off.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

 _Git_ , she muttered as she splashed water on her face in the bathroom and tried to get her breathing under control. She didn't want to be mad at him, but honestly, enough was enough, no? She was doing everything he asked, without complaint, and to be yelled at for not being present in a difficult situation when he was the one ordering her to stay behind was just too much.

 _Oncoming Storm my arse_ , she said under her breath as she tossed herself down on the bed and started flipping through a magazine. _More like Oncoming Snit_. She flipped the page rather savagely and tried to get absorbed in what she was reading.

She wasn't particularly surprised when the door to her room slid open about twenty minutes later.

She turned another page, not looking up. "Come to take another strip off of me?" she asked, her voice so even and calm that she felt sure it would have won an acting award somewhere in the universe. "Because I'm tired, if so."

"No," he said quietly, sitting down gingerly on the far corner of her bed. "Rose, you're right. We do need to talk."

"I'm not sure what there is to say," she said in quiet misery, closing the magazine and pulling up to sit with her back against the wall, knees pulled against her chest. "Do you want me to go? Because that seems to be where this is heading. You don't need to sugar coat it for me."

There seemed to be no point pussy footing around it anymore. What possible use to him was a companion he couldn't trust to leave the ship? _Stupid, stupid Rose_ , she thought. _Really hashed this one up._

"No," he said, "I really don't."

"But we can't go on like this."

He nodded. "Yeah, you're probably right on that. We've got quite a mess on our hands."

"I miss you. I miss…" Rose blurted out impulsively, looking up to meet his gaze. "I miss us. It's been weeks! It's not just going places with you, although you know I miss that too. It's just — you're not you right now and I'm not me." She stopped in frustration, nothing coming out right. "I just — I don't know how to tell you how sorry I am. I don't know how to fix this. How to fix us. But I'd do anything if I could."

He was still for a long moment, one that seemed to stretch almost endlessly.

"It's not that I'm angry anymore, Rose," he said quietly. "I was, certainly. And I know you're sorry. I'd have to be blind not to see it. There's just more I need you to understand here. And I'm not sure you do. Not yet."

She absorbed that for a moment, then tried again. "I think, really, it wasn't as much that I made you so angry." She looked up at him and found him watching her, his expression inscrutable. "I think… well, I think it's that I scared you. Is that it?"

He gave a tight nod. "Partly. You don't know how much I fear it. Losing you. Not just you in the sense of all you humans with your puny little life spans, here and gone in the blink of an eye. _You_ , Rose. You in particular." He stopped, eyes closed. "I can barely keep you safe as it is, in our regular everyday lives."

A light went on in her head. "And now you feel like maybe you have to keep me safe from me, too. Oh god, of course you do." She looked at him, horrified. What a burden to have placed on him.

"Right. Because clearly you aren't going to exercise the least bit of sense in deciding whether something might or might not kill you. So how can I take you anywhere?" His voice came out a little harsher than he had intended.

Rose swallowed. _So much for not angry._ "You're right," she said quietly. "And I can see why you feel that way. You don't trust me right now. Why would you? And what possible use can I be to you if you can't trust me? I get it."

He stilled, clearly waiting to hear more.

"The thing is, though — I've been thinking a lot. Not much else to do while I'm alone in here all day." He glanced up to gauge her expression and she kept it open, indicating that she hadn't meant that as a dig at him. "And it occurred to me the other day that up until now, I always kind of thought I was indestructible, deep down. You know? I'm twenty. I'm kinda supposed to feel that way, yeah?"

The Doctor opened his mouth as if to break in, and she rushed on before he could.

"I mean, for all the danger and near misses we've gotten into, you've always been there to save me and defend me and rescue me. I've never seriously been hurt before. Certainly never lost an arm and a spleen and god knows what else. If you hadn't been there, if you hadn't been you…" she shuddered.

"Exactly," he said. "If I hadn't been there, if you'd been one millimeter closer to the blast, if I hadn't had the sonic on me, if I hadn't added the setting recently that I used to stop the bleeding, if you'd been two seconds faster or I'd been one second slower… Rose, you'd be dead." His words are brutal but his expression is more bleak than angry. "Dead and gone. You aren't going to regenerate. You aren't coming back. Just gone. Do you even realize that?"

She thought for a minute, not wanting to give him a quick and easy answer. He deserved more than that.

"I think I'm starting to. Realizing my own mortality and all that. I honestly don't think I really believed it before. And I realized that knowing you're there to pick me up all the time has made me a little careless."

He huffed, his bangs blowing up off of his forehead. "Humans," he muttered. "Better late than never, I suppose. But I don't know how you could've been injured and endangered as many dozens of times as you have been before this and not understand that you could be killed."

"Slow learner?"

"No, that isn't it," he said, irritated. "You know you're brilliant. But here's the other thing, Rose. What I just said. The many dozens of times you've been hurt and endangered and nearly died. That's just wrong, Rose. That's happening to you because of _me_. _My_ fault. _My_ responsibility. If it weren't for me you'd be safe and happy and back on Earth with your family and instead you're out here in constant danger. I only manage to deal with it, I think, by completely glossing over it, pretending it doesn't exist."

"And now you can't."

He nodded, clearly at a loss for words. Rose looked at him, her heart breaking for him. He looked desperate and dejected and like he might just melt through the floor. She had done this to him.

Rose eased her way over closer to him on the bed, approaching him as if he were a skittish animal. Things felt so delicate between them, she couldn't risk spooking him off. He was talking with her. That was worth everything to her right now.

And she could hear his next words, unsaid, hanging between them. _I need to take you home. I can't do this anymore._

"Doctor," she said, carefully laying a hand over his on the bedspread. He didn't pull away. "I can't imagine what I put you through," she said simply, willing her voice to stay steady despite the prickle in the back of her nose signaling gathering tears. "I can't. I would've lost my mind if you'd done that to me! Would've wanted to kill you myself as soon as you woke up." He laughed a little. "I hate that I scared you and traumatized you."

"You did," he said simply. "And I can't seem to let it go. But I hate it, this travelling without you, all this tension between us, leaving you behind every time I go out. Dull, dull, dull. There's no one to talk to — I mean, there's lots of people to talk to, can always find someone to talk to, me. You know me, big on the chatting. Conversation is practically my middle name." He stopped suddenly. "But none of them are you. It's frustrating."

Rose tentatively ran a finger over his thumb, and was surprised when he turned his hand over and threaded his finger through hers.

"So," she said quietly, "what do we do?"

He sighed and met her eyes. "I guess I need to forgive you."

Rose swallowed a big lump away. "Can you?"

He looked down. "I shouldn't. I should take you home. I should keep you alive like I promised Jackie. I should end this."

Rose literally felt the room constrict, as if all of the air were squeezed out of it. Please don't, she wanted to say. She wanted to beg. But honestly, he was right. She didn't want him to, but he was right.

"You're probably right, Doctor," she said quietly. "I've been acting like a kid, in some ways, just running off on one trip after another like it was all a lark. Careless. You have too, to a degree. We kind of bring it out in each other, I think. When really, underneath, what we're doing out here as often as not is just deadly serious."

He looked up at her, his eyes unreadable.

"I get that now," she said. "I do." She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. Time to stop being a child. "But if you want me to go, I will. Not because you're angry at me — that we can fix, I know - but because maybe this is too much to ask. You shouldn't have to bear the weight of the universe and bear the weight of trying to keep me alive all at the same time." Her eyes were shining with tears she was refusing to shed. "I'll go if you tell me to. I won't make it difficult."

"Rose," he groaned softly. "I don't want that. I'm a selfish bastard at my core. I need you here with me, universe be damned."

"I don't want it either," she said quietly.

He was silent a minute, then he looked up with the hint of a crooked smile on his lips. "Well then," he said. "I guess you're staying."

She smiled at him. "Well then," she said, "let's figure some things out about how we're going to get into less trouble out there in the field."

" _Less_ trouble?" he asked with a grin.

"Well, I can't say no trouble," she said, bumping him lightly with her shoulder. "Who would believe that?"


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Later that evening, he found her reading on the couch in the library.

"Come," he said, holding out a hand to her with a smile. When she took it, he pulled her gently behind him out to the console room.

"I don't want you to miss this," he said. "It's nearly sunset, and there are three moons rising." He opened the doors and ushered her through. Rose gasped. They were parked on a high peak, an endless series of silver colored mountains cascading out in front of them as orange and purple bands of light marked the setting of the planet's star. Off to the left of them, two pale green moons were rising, immense and impossibly close together. A third, smaller moon was already visible several feet above them and to the west.

"It's so beautiful," she breathed. She felt tears prickling her eyes and wasn't sure why. The Doctor let go of her hand but still stood close, his shoulder close enough to hers that she could feel his body heat through her shirt. "Thank you, for showing me," she said quietly.

"Figured it was time for you to see something other than the inside of the library," he said, his tone gentle.

"Is this where you were today?"

"Well, more or less," he said. "We were parked somewhere closer to the capital city today, but I moved it when I got back. Figured no one was going to bother us up here."

He sat down with his back against a rock and patted the soft grass next to him. Rose scrambled down to join him, and he slipped an arm around her shoulders.

She laid her head on his shoulder, drinking in the closeness with him after such a long drought. She couldn't be sure but she thought he was feeling the same way.

"Can I just say, again, I'm so sorry for all of this, Doctor…" Rose said. "I promise it won't happen again."

He made a shushing sound. "Rose, apology accepted. This is you and me moving past this, okay?"

She nodded, feeling something uncurl inside her at last.

"And tomorrow," he said, "we're going somewhere quiet. Ease you back into this. Most dangerous thing you're going to see tomorrow is maybe a mountain goat."

"Mountain goats can be quite dangerous, Doctor," she teased. "I remember hearing back home about one that gored a man to death on a hiking trail."

"Okay, scratch that," he said, and she could see the twinkle in his eye even in the dark. "Nothing more dangerous than a prairie dog."

"How about a mouse?"

"Ohhhhhhhh no, Rose, never a mouse. Mice can be incredibly dangerous! Brought down almost the whole of Europe in the middle ages, carrying their little vermin everywhere and letting off the plague. And that's not even getting into the history of the Gemini Cluster, where a race of beings semi-related to your terrestrial mice started one of the biggest wars in the quadrant. Of course, it was all over who got to control a rather interesting moon that just did happen to be made of cheese. Let's see, I think it all started about two centuries back, your time…"

Rose settled back, a smile on her face, and listened happily to his story while they watched the stars wink into view.


End file.
